Uma Noite Qualquer

"Uma noite qualquer" is a short horror-esque game made for a battle arena contest. It's just you and this spider in your house.

You try to figure out what you can possibly do (read: find keys), ultimately find a gun when you expect to just run away and then kill them all.
It's very short, but since you probably need a couple of replays, you will need longer than 10 minutes.

Now, this is meant to be about a monster chase, but this aspect is exploited only later in the game and melts into the general experience.

The atmosphere is fairly good, you awake to noise of a window shattering and hear a distant humming growing louder as your house transforms into a spider's nest.
There is no music. There is no silence. Just a strange, animal humming which at first isn't troubling at all, but soon becomes .. a little bit unsettling I guess.


Good thing the front door is locked. And no key to be found..

The general soundeffects, however, fall very short. They feel alienating in this dark, creepy atmosphere and too light. Finding keys creates a random sound, being attacked makes a default taking damage noise. The rest is okay. While the soundeffects all do what they're supposed to do, they do not contribute to the overall atmosphere.

There is a certain order to do things. The keys you find have no descriptions whatsoever, so you won't know where to use them unless you try. And, of course, you need to take the longest way possible at all times to use the next one while you walk slooowly. It did speed up very late in the game for no apparant reason, which I cannot understand. 10 seconds before I beat the game.


Finally able to see something. Now where did you go..

The vision, as you can tell, is .. limited. While it is a nice touch to enable your small house to become a dark, dark place, it is quite annoying. The screen above shows the sight at max-health, and yes, you can still make out things. But if you take damage, everything bare your 2-tile view will blur out making it impossible to know where this thing is. The walls cover it up, too, which does not help the matter at all. You don't find it. It finds you.
You at least recover after some time and regain your view, though. Otherwise, this game would be impossible.

This feature makes the foe more dangerous, but considering what you do .. the only time you really need to dodge this spider is when you are in a small hallway from which you cannot possibly escape should it charge at you!
It does charge randomly, but one trick is to let yourself be attacked before that, so it will be not in front of this specific hallway. Which leads to another main "feature" ..

The step by step mechanics. You can't run. You can't hide. You can be attacked and get away, or be at a bad location and die. You can run around without problems the first half, and you spend most of the time without weapon which makes "battle arena" less suitable - you cannot save, either.

There is only one, and exact one way to do things. And since you die, you will soon follow this one for yourself.
Forgot a name relevant for a puzzle? Too bad, retry.
Got the spider in front of this hallway? Too bad, retry.
Ran over a spidernet? Too bad, retry.

At first, this gives your foe more power. It helps the atmosphere, since this spider is actually killing you. But that effect soon diminishes. And after that you just mechanically follow the procedure.
It is very odd that you kill it so easily then - or should I say, hit and run it.
There are one or two "items" to hide behind, which you will do. Otherwise, or even if you do that, you hit and then run as fast as you can. Pardon, walk.
You get hit, wait a minute for your vision to return, and hit again.
If you are damaged, you have no other choice but to wait around. If you were to be attacked, you'd instantly die, and you have the least chance of avoiding it in this state, too!
Luckily does the monster not chase very far, so you obviously can and will wait your damage out.
As you might imagine, this feature does not work too well in here.

The battle is no struggle, it is not difficult. It is, perhaps, a matter of trial and error. It is perhaps a trial of patience, for you need to wait around way longer than you actually do something, but it doesn't do the term battle much credit.

My personal main complaint is that the battle and search-part do not come well together. I was certain that I was trying to find a way out. There was a door out next to the broken window, and it was locked. And while you unlock any other door, this one remains so.
The first part makes you fear the monster, make it out to be something you cannot fight, and then you simply slaughter it without effort.
And it ends. No ending scene, nothing, just credits.



It has some nice ideas.
Uma noite qualquer is fairly unsettling for the most part, but annoyingly frustrating at the same time despite the lacking difficulty.
But I realize that I am not afraid of spiders and am not easily scared, either.
I shall be lenient.